“Get your gun out and shoot the fucker,” I screamed. “It’s gonna kill me.”
“Cannot, cannot. Just keep running,” the composed copper shouted back, still giving chase to the uncontrollable feral fiend.
“It’s gonna catch me! Just shoot the bastard in the leg. Don’t worry about negative publicity. I’m a journalist. I’ll make you a hero. Shoot the bastard!”
Fortunately, the bus was just a couple of strides away and I heard the indefatigable policeman calling Blacky back. The mad mongrel never gave up the chase, but the copper’s commands were enough to distract it. My leap onto the bus was so dramatic that the horrified driver raised his arms to break my fall. We almost ended up cuddling in the driver’s seat. I slumped into the nearest seat and dropped everything on the floor: my bag, my phone, my notepad, my wallet. Everything. I struggled to pick up the slim notepad from under the seat. My hands and legs were shaking. Then my phone beeped. It was a message from my newfound friend and saviour. I had passed the policeman my name card just before the Asian werewolf in Lim Chu Kang had woken from its slumber. The message read “Glad you made bus okay. Sorry about the dog.”
Can I just take a moment to declare my unfettered love and admiration for the Singapore Police Force? They go way beyond the call of duty to assist citizens and employment pass holders in their moment of need. My anonymous copper was courageous, selfless and utterly unflappable. But I still think he should have shot that bloody dog.
CHAPTER 15
The following morning I took the military express back to the farming estates of northwest Singapore. It was actually the No. 975 bus from Choa Chu Kang, but it served several army bases, a police academy and that bloody Coast Guard Base popular with murderous dogs. I was the only person on the bus not wearing a uniform. I wanted a gun just so I could fit in.
The No. 975 bus route has to be one of the most splendid public transport journeys in Singapore. It proceeds past the plant nurseries of Sungei Tengah, trundles alongside the cemeteries of Lim Chu Kang and turns into Old Lim Chu Kang Road (a silent country lane surrounded by vegetable farms and overhanging trees) before heading back down the near-empty Lim Chu Kang Road with its dense, forested areas and reservoirs along the coastline. Those who favour the sounds of silence over the city’s cacophony really should venture out this way. Even those who collect gun magazines and have posters of tanks on their bedroom wall would like it here. You cannot move without seeing a tanned man in uniform. It was like a holiday camp for The Village People.
When I stepped off the bus beside Neo Tiew Road, I was confronted by a prominent red sign bearing a skull and crossbones. It was yet another live firing area for Singapore’s military. But for one terrifying moment, I thought they were filming the sequel to The Pirates of the Caribbean here.
I strode purposefully up Neo Tiew Road. This part of Singapore was once home to much of the country’s farming industries and rubber estates and I wanted to explore how much of it actually remained. When you think of rubber plantations and vegetable farms, you tend to think of Malaysia. Like rainforests and orangutans, anything tilled, cultivated or ploughed is usually associated with Singapore’s cousin across the Causeway.
But that is not quite the case. According to a recent newspaper report, there are 114 fruit, vegetable, plant, dairy and fish farms in the Kranji area. To its credit, the Singapore Tourism Board has finally recognised that there is more to a country’s soul than retail outlets and Sentosa and now actively encourages tourists (and local schoolchildren) to visit the ulu farms and nurseries here.
It is not an artificial experience. Many are long-standing, family-run working farms that predate high-rise housing and, dare I say it, the PAP. They are that old. And they are a damn sight more Singaporean than the Merlion. It is most ironic. Singaporeans lap up those short farm stays in Perth, complimenting the back-to-basics, rustic bliss of the simple life. Surrounded by haystacks, animals and Aussies, they welcome the escape from the grey drudgery of life in a sprawling metropolis, and rightfully so. But there is still a place here where they can amble around for hours, spot more wild animals than people, pick a ripe banana off a tree, walk in the forest, fish in a stream, eat an organic meal, drink the freshest milk and feed a goat. All within 30 minutes of their front door.
Neo Tiew Road was a slower, more congenial world than urban Singapore. Here, drivers in passing cars waved at me. Vegetable and fruit pickers shouted greetings in just about every Southeast Asian language. A fellow walker told me to have a nice day while several farmhands, and I know this resembles a scene from The Waltons, sang tunelessly in the sunshine. I passed cherry trees, African tulip trees and durian trees while the unkempt elephant grass towered above me in some places. I loved that. The grass outside my HDB block is not allowed to reach a height of over 5 centimetres before an alarm goes off at the Bishan-Toa Payoh Town Council and the legions of gardeners are deployed with their trimming weapons to take down the offending blades. Today, it is just a blade of grass. But tomorrow, it is a lawn.
I noticed a sign outside the Green Circle Eco-Farm encouraging visitors to pop in. With the merciless sun beating down, it certainly looked inviting. If nothing else, it had a roof. Calling itself Singapore’s first biodynamic organic farm, Green Circle grows over 60 food crops on its premises, using no artificial pesticides or fertilisers. This is about as natural as organic food is ever going to get in Singapore. There was a middle-aged Chinese couple frantically completing orders, packing lettuces and other green vegetables into various boxes to be delivered. When they are not growing their own, as it were, the couple gives environmental talks to schoolchildren and conducts tours of the farm. I was suitably impressed.
“How do you guys do it?” I asked, awed by their dedication.
“It’s hard work, must keep growing and selling to survive,” replied the woman. She never stopped juggling lettuces. I was clearly in the way.
“But it’s a 2-hectare plot of land. Why hasn’t it been redeveloped by the government?”
Right on cue, the screeching sound of something airborne and armed flew overhead. It was an SAF fighter jet of some kind with luminous felt-tipped missiles and heat-seeking odour-eaters hanging beneath its wings. I am sure some boring bugger, who quotes lines from Top Gun and sleeps with an Action Man every night, will point out that the Singapore Armed Forces has recently received an order of a dozen condom-coated rockets to be attached to a pair of Blue-Tit Fat Fighters. But I really could not care less. Discussions on military hardware are right up there with the yardage of a golf course and the price of new cars.
When the man in his magnificent phallic symbol disappeared, taking his noise pollution with him, the lettuce lady glanced up at the sky and said, “That’s why we’re safe. We’re surrounded by army bases so they can’t build houses. Would you live here?”
There is irony for you. As long as excitable young pilots are tearing through the sky in their latest technological toys while soldiers dash through the forest shooting inanimate objects, the remnants of Singapore’s farming culture can quietly go about its business of nurturing its peaceful sanctuary next door.
I had planned to find a shady bench somewhere to eat a rather austere packed lunch consisting of a bottle of water and a packet of crisps when I chanced upon a little dining delight. I had a vague recollection of there being a vegetable farm owned by Ivy Singh Lim in the area, but I had never expected this. A handcrafted sign shouted at me from across the road: “Bollywood Veggies: chicken curry, local delights, cold drinks and beer”. Then I noticed a car park, an air-conditioned restaurant with a fruit and vegetable farm behind it and a decent-sized bungalow, all within one estate. The anomalous view was extraordinary. After ambling for several hours along a deserted lane surrounded by empty forest save for the odd farm, it was most bizarre to find a bustling restaurant with waitresses dashing around taking orders. The peculiar discovery was akin to floundering around in the sand of the Nevada Desert for days on end before finall
y stumbling upon Bugsy Siegel’s Flamingo Hotel.
But Bollywood Veggies was not out of place. In fact, its location was ideal—a country restaurant in the country, with its homegrown food providing the ingredients for many of the dishes at its Poison Ivy Bistro. Half a dozen expat housewives and about 10 Singaporeans were eating inside. I was surprised. I had expected the eatery to be empty. Behind the bistro, a coach party from a special needs school was being given a guided tour of the Bollywood farm, which grows everything from papaya to avocados. Watching the enthusiastic guide stressing the need to protect the Singaporean countryside, I felt obligated to stay for a curry.
Then Ivy Singh Lim appeared. Married to a successful businessman, the indomitable, outspoken woman is a well-known socialite in Singapore. But you will never find her sitting by the pool berating the maid. A dogged campaigner for the Singaporean countryside and a staunch supporter of the local sports scene, she became president of Netball Singapore and turned the game into the most popular sport in the country for girls. In 2005, Singapore won the Asian Netball Championship. A media darling, she takes every opportunity to smack down the laborious, pen-pushing civil servants who have long dominated sports associations and government bodies in Singapore. I had met her only once before when I was a rookie reporter at The Straits Times. As she was being introduced to all the gathered journalists, she singled me out and said, “This ang moh doesn’t know what to make of me, does he? He’s been watching me the whole time with those piercing, cynical blue eyes of his.”
And here she was, walking towards me wearing an army-style camouflage vest, khaki shorts and a pair of hobnailed boots. There was also a leather knife sheaf on her hip. Kranji’s answer to G.I. Jane then noticed my Green Circle Farm leaflet on the table.
“Ah, are you part of the Kranji Association?” she asked. The Kranji Countryside Association was established by 10 farmers in 2005 to encourage more Singaporeans to visit and learn about the countryside. There are no prizes for guessing who the Association’s president was. With an almost military bearing, she towered over my table.
“No, I just wanted to see some of Singapore’s more ulu spots,” I replied coyly. “I wanted to get away from the city for a couple of days. I’m, er, very impressed with what you’re doing here.”
“Well, just remember this,” she said, with her hands on her hips for greater impact. “The baby gods may run the global city but Ivy Singh Lim runs the country.”
I did not disagree. She had a knife.
I had intended to visit Hay Dairies Goat Farm, a few kilometres north of Bollywood Veggies, but the BBC came calling. Further along Neo Tiew Road was a sign that read “BBC World Service: Far Eastern Relay Station”. Here I was in ulu land and all I had to do was take a lane called Turut Track and be confronted by the regional home of the greatest news service on the planet. I knew it was only a transmitting centre full of satellites and enormous aerials, but this was the BBC—the grandaddy of broadcasting. There were bound to be plaques, exhibits and blown-up photographs of Spike Milligan and Peter Sellers in The Goon Show and The Beatles performing at the BBC. Without hesitation, I made an impulsive, patriotic decision to savour a slice of my homeland in the middle of the Asian jungle. Delighted with my spontaneity, I marched off down the deserted country lane singing the only patriotic song I knew off by heart:
“Rule Britannia,
Marmalade and jam,
Five Chinese crackers up your arsehole,
Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang!”
I trudged along for a couple of kilometres, leaving a snaillike trail of perspiration behind me. And do you know what I encountered when I stopped outside the hallowed grounds of the BBC? Nothing. Bugger all. Just a dreary, boxy white building with narrow windows, the kind that was popular in Britain in the 1960s. The drab office block was surrounded by red-and-white pylons, all of which was fenced off. That was fair enough. But there was not even a plaque or an information panel to provide visitors with a brief overview of the BBC’s role in Singapore, from the colonial days through to independence. They had even neglected to provide another human being, preferring one of those intercom speakers at the gate instead of a security guard. Feeling more than a tad fractious, I was tempted to push the button and ask for a double cheeseburger with no gherkins.
An hour later, I waved the white flag and threw myself at the mercy of benevolent truck drivers. I hitchhiked. There is no safer country in the world to do so and my legs refused to go any further. Besides, I did not fancy fainting in some ditch in ulu land and being left at the mercy of the stray dogs that wandered in and out of the forest. Somewhere along Lim Chu Kang Lane 3, I stuck my thumb out and, this really was true, the very first driver pulled over and picked me up. I scrambled up into his truck and slumped into the passenger seat. I almost dozed off.
“Aiyoh, look at you,” said the shocked middle-aged Chinese driver. “Cannot walk in the sun for so long. Radio say it is 34 degrees now. Got no cloud and no rain today. You mad to walk in this heat. Where you going?”
“Hay Dairies Goat Farm. It’s in Lane 4.”
“Wah, with your face like that, you could scare the goats.”
Hay Dairies Goat Farm is the only goat farm in Singapore. The Hay family built up a small fortune in pig farming, but the government decided in the early 1980s that pig farming was out, so the Hays invested in some alpine goats from Minnesota instead. Now they have got over a thousand and serve a niche market for Singaporeans allergic to cow’s milk. I arrived at 3.50pm. As the farm was closing at 4pm, I rushed over to the lady at the counter and said, “Hello, Mrs Hay, can I buy a bag of your hay please, Mrs Hay?” She did not laugh either.
After a lightning dash around the goat pens, feeding as many goats as I could, I retired to a table for a drink. I felt a tap on the shoulder. A beaming Chinese chap in his mid-forties looked down at me while his pal collected a case of goat’s milk from the counter.
“Where you from?” he asked.
“Toa Payoh.”
“No, where are you really from? You don’t look like you’re from Toa Payoh.”
This insensitive, anachronistic observation drives me mad, as I am sure it does the thousands of fair-skinned Eurasians whose families have lived in Singapore for generations.
“Really? What do people from Toa Payoh look like then?”
“No, no, sorry. What I mean is ... ”
“I used to live in London.” I let him off the hook. He was a decent guy really.
“Ah, I went to London in 1982 for business. I got an orchid farm. Used to sell one type of orchid to a big store. Called Mark and something. Mark and Son?”
“Marks & Spencer?”
“Yah, that was it. Mark and Stencil. We sold orchids to Mark and Stencil for three years, but then the contract suddenly stopped. Dunno why.”
Probably because he kept referring to the store as “Mark and Stencil”.
Shortly before sunset, I found myself stranded at the end of Sungei Tengah Road. On the map, the northern tip of the road was bordered by forest and surrounded by the streams of Sungei Tengah and Sungei Peng Siang. It certainly looked ulu on the map. It was. Too bloody ulu. On foot, the dense foliage was inaccessible to the most ardent of explorers, let alone someone who should have called it a day after Hay Dairies. Outside Seng Choon Farm, half a dozen foreign workers piled into the back of a truck. Rather melodramatically, I stepped hastily in front of the vehicle and pretty much demanded a free ride back to civilisation. It was presumptuous, but I was desperate. The Chinese driver found me so amusing he offered me a seat in the back. My fellow foreign workers, who were all Indian, gladly made space for one more sweaty body. Conversation was difficult as their English was about as proficient as my Tamil. But through a combination of hand gestures and guffawing, they managed to express their firm belief that despite coming from a country of over one billion people, they had never seen such big feet. I was outraged. India has elephants.
The guy beside me then took o
ut a knife. That was an alarming, unexpected development and I was a trifle concerned. Then he produced a papaya, cut a slice and handed it to me. I was humbled by his generosity. We were all foreign workers on that truck, but I did not kid myself. Our Singapore stories contrasted sharply. Their wages are often appalling and their living conditions even worse. These poor guys are the country’s invisible people— seen, but rarely acknowledged. They build Singapore’s homes, offices and expressways and clean and paint the HDB blocks and hawker centres, but spend most of their time here in the shadows. We had almost nothing in common, not even a language. But for 15 minutes, we huddled together and enjoyed a breezy ride through the countryside, a glorious sunset and some papaya. The journey was bumpy, my entire body ached and I had to sit cross-legged all the way to Choa Chu Kang’s town centre. And yet I had never felt more comfortable.
CHAPTER 16
Unlike almost every other male over 18 in Singapore, I have never fired a gun. Nor have I ever shared a bunk with another man. And I have never joined other young men in the jungle to paint helmets. National Service in Britain was abolished back in I960, which means I am at a disadvantage in Singapore for several reasons.
First, I never get time off from work for reservist training. Singaporean male colleagues disappear from the office for the odd weekend jaunt claiming they are off to serve their country. I have no idea where they go, but they invariably return slimmer and tanned. I think they all go to health spas.
Second, National Servicemen are all fluent in bizarre Hokkien and Singlish phrases that mean nothing to anyone else. Approach a Singaporean woman and say “fuck spider” and she almost certainly will not clean your rifle. In the army, however, the spider refers to the dirt in a rifle during an inspection. Then there is the bizarrely sexual Hokkien rebuke often used by a superior officer to berate an idle subordinate. He might say something like, “Recruit, I told you to make your bed, but you just kiao kah yo lum par.”
Final Notes From a Great Island Page 13
